When Gunnar Nelson was forced out of his UFC Liverpool co-main event showdown with Neil Magny, Jorge Masvidal offered to step in and replace him. Masvidal only asked that this short-notice bout with Magny be contested at 180 pounds, as he would have difficult making the welterweight limit’s 170-pound with an abridged training camp.
While Masvidal’s offer was certainly interesting, it doesn’t sound as though this short-notice bout will happen. The reason for the bout’s failure to come to fruition, of course, depends on who you ask.
In Magny’s opinion, it’s because Masvidal is an “unprofessional slob” who couldn’t make the welterweight limit in time for the bout.
I'll gladly fight him at any weight 170 up….truth is he's an unprofessional slob who is unable to make weight on 4weeks notice and the UFC said no. https://t.co/ClvgjcsmmM
— Neil Magny (@NeilMagny) May 8, 2018
In Masvidal’s eyes, however, it’s simply because Magny doesn’t want to fight him.
Masvidal gave his side of things on the latest episode of BJPENN.COM Radio.
“Man, he’s just full of shit, to tell you the truth,” Masvidal said of Magny’s reasoning. “He said that I’m a slob at 180 [pounds], this and that. Okay, cool bro. Yeah, I’m out of shape, you can say whatever you want, but this fight’s been [offered] twice at 170, what were the excuses then? Ask him, you know? If he’s a man, he’ll post up whatever his reason was. Maybe his big toe was hurting, I don’t know what it was, but the fight’s been offered at 170. 170 pounds.”
“The fights been offered twice to him but he didn’t want to take so what is he saying?” Masvidal continued. “I don’t want to say anybody from his team said no [to the fight offer], cause I don’t know what his team said. I don’t know [if] anybody on his team’s been talking shit. I just know Magny, and I think he said no.”
While Masvidal’s short-notice Liverpool bout with Magny isn’t going to happen, he says he’d be happy to fight Magny at UFC 227, this August 4th in Los Angeles. That said, he doesn’t expect Magny to accept the fight for that date — or ever
“If you want to do it, sign the fucking bout agreement,” Masvidal said. “August 4th is looking like a great card, we can get on that card. I could kick your ass on that card, because I’d want the whole world to watch him get embarrassed. But we’re not [going to fight at UFC 227], you know. I don’t know when he wants to fight. He doesn’t want to fight is what I’m trying to say.”
Given the difficulty Masvidal is having getting Magny to agree to a fight, he’s starting to worry that he’ll never get the chance to meet him in the Octagon. In such an event, he wouldn’t be opposed to fighting Magny under other circumstances — particularly if Magny were to disrespect him in person.
“I hope I don’t have to come to blows outside of the Octagon because I wouldn’t be getting paid,” he said. “But I’m not the type of dude to get dissed by an idiot, you know?”
“If he keeps his distance and doesn’t touch me and he just talks from a distance or whatever, you know that’s one thing,” Masvidal added. “Maybe nothing will happen, but if he gets disrespectful at any place, any time, he’s gonna get fucking put in his place.”
Do you think we’ll ever see Jorge Masvidal and Neil Magny settle their differences in the Octagon?
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 5/10/2018.